


The Chance Of A Different Lifetime

by 852_Prospect_Archivist



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 09:33:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/796709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/852_Prospect_Archivist/pseuds/852_Prospect_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will Blair take a chance on Jim? Oh, who are we kidding?!</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Chance Of A Different Lifetime

## The Chance Of A Different Lifetime

by Pink Dragon

The title to this story was a line in a book I was reading a couple of weeks ago. It stuck in my head till this little slip of a thing happened. Could really use a little positive reinforcement right now, if you like it.

* * *

My name is Blair Sandburg, and I'm a cop. I didn't start out being a cop, I started out being a scientist, a scholar, a teacher. But that was a different lifetime. Now I'm a cop. 

My partner, Jim Ellison, took an extended leave of absence while I went to the police academy. See, we were partners even before I was a cop. Both Simon (our captain) and I felt he shouldn't be working without a partner, because of the senses, and anyway, he refused to work with anyone but me. He told Simon we were a package deal, Jim and Blair. We stay together or we leave together. No one had ever done that for me before. We were more than partners, we were friends. Now, I think we're more than friends. 

Have you ever worked a jigsaw puzzle? You probably think I'm going to equate jigsaw puzzles with police work, with solving crimes, putting the pieces together until you see the whole. But I'm not. It's about Jim and me, about something Jim did that didn't fit the puzzle of our lives. 

If you've ever worked a jigsaw, you might remember noticing one particular puzzle piece mixed in with the jumble of the rest of them. Maybe you noticed an odd shape, or a striking color, or an unexpected pattern. Or maybe it looked like it didn't even belong in this puzzle, was possibly mysteriously raptured into the sealed box, right through the cardboard. An anomaly. 

But when you finally find the right place for that piece, you wonder how you never noticed before. It was perfectly obvious, right before your eyes. You even had the picture on the box to go by, and you still missed it, how the anomaly fit in. I had the picture on the box to go by, the picture of my life, years, with Jim, and I still missed it. How the anomaly fit. It was weird. I was an anthropologist, an observer of human nature, a cop, an investigator. I saw the anomaly, puzzled about it for a bit, then just got used to it being there, at the edge of my vision. There, but not recognized. Not until now. 

The anomaly was Jim's behavior. He changed, slowly but dramatically. Not so much at work, more so at home, at the loft. I'm not really sure when it started. But now, I can hardly remember it not being there. He's different now, with me. He's almost, I guess, gentle. 

Have you ever seen a mother holding her newborn child? They way she ever-sogently will stroke the tip of her index finger across the cheek of her baby? Humans have an instinct to touch each other. Jim has been indulging this instinct a lot lately. 

I'm not saying he touches me as though I were his newborn child, it's just different than it used to be. He used to ruffle my hair, rub my head, give me a good noogie. When I first got my hair cut, he aborted his first instinctual need to touch it, drew his hand back, and made a joke about not petting me like a puppy. When I told him it was okay, I was used to being petted, he just laughed it off, called me Fluffy, and went back to his basketball game. The next time he reached out to touch me, he didn't draw back his hand. He rested it lightly against my head, a look of intense curiousity on his face. Now, whenever, wherever he touches me, his hand lingers. His eyes watch mine, travel over my face, return to my eyes, then he'll smile and shrug, and go back to whatever he was doing. Now, his touch is gentle. At first it was an anomaly, something out of the ordinary. There, but mostly ignored. Until the puzzle pieces came together and it fit right in, perfectly, obviously, looking just like the picture on the box. 

He's in love with me. 

Well it's about damn time. 

I've been in love with him almost since the first moment I saw him, sitting on that exam room table, buttoning his white-boy prep-school shirt over that fabulous, and I do mean FABULOUS chest of his. I would have done anything to get my hands on his skin, that smooth, pale, lickable, suckable skin and it had nothing to do with him being a Sentinel. It had everything to do with him being the most gorgeous hunk of man I'd laid eyes on since Brad Pitt took off his shirt in "Thelma & Louise." Just that was worth the price of the ticket. 

Well, I digress. 

Jim. The man was gorgeous. If he'd slammed me up against the wall and said, "Suck me, pretty boy," I'd have done it, no problemo. Then I would have bent him over that exam room table and fucked him over the moon. 

Hmmm. I seem to be digressing again. 

Well, anyway, now I have to decide what to do about this, about Jim finally being in love with me. Because I know it will be up to me to do something, to make the first move. Not because Jim isn't a take-charge kind of guy, but for the simple reason that he is. He would make the first move if I were a woman, if it were anyone other than me. But because of the way we are together, because of our history, because I've already made one major, drastic change in my life, he'll leave it to me to make the first move, to decide to take the chance. 

The chance of a different lifetime? 

We're just home from dinner with Simon. We had a great meal, then went to a concert. Hot jazz and chilled wine under the warm summer stars. Jim hasn't been this relaxed in a long time. He's on the patio, watching the moon come up, standing close beside me. Should I take the chance? Should I just kiss him? 

I think about it for a few moments. It doesn't feel like time has stopped, or any of that romantic crap. It does feel different, though, this moment, where I could change our lives forever. I could kiss him, take the chance. I could not kiss him, and keep this great life we have together. 

Kiss him, or not kiss him? 

I'm reminded of little girls I've seen pulling the petals off flowers. Loves me, loves me not, loves me, loves me not. 

I know Jim loves me. I know I love him. 

Will I do it, take the chance? 

How can I not? 

I turn toward him, lay my hand on his arm. He looks down at me, smiles that gentle smile, and I stretch up and press my mouth softly against his. His hands come to rest at my waist, then he moans quietly and closes his eyes. One hand slides excruciatingly slowly up my back and cradles the back of my head while the other slips tight around my waist and pulls me into him, and he kisses me back. 

I took the chance of a different lifetime. 

And I won. 

* * *

End The Chance Of A Different Lifetime by Pink Dragon: pinkdragon456@aol.com

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